How Airplanes DO Make A Difference

     They say a picture speaks a thousand words, but the picture that you see here also cries a thousand tears. At first glance, it’s difficult to tell what you are seeing in this picture, and that’s because what you’re seeing is absolute destruction. Quite possibly the most tragic single event in modern history is the “Boxing Day Tsunami” that happened December 26th, 2004.

     This tsunami happened in the Indian Ocean, and was triggered by one of the most massive earthquakes ever recorded. This generated a series of gigantic tidal waves that in some places were over 100 feet tall. In the span of several hours, over 230,000 people lost their lives to the destructive forces of this tsunami. And for those who survived, life would never be the same.

Epicenter of 2014 "Boxing Day Tsunami"

     While the giant destructive waves hit many countries all around the Indian Ocean, the hardest hit country was the closest country to the epicenter of the earthquake- Indonesia. And the hardest hit province in Indonesia was Aceh.  As you can see in the picture above, nothing is left of what used to be a village. Other than the road, the only man-made object that is recognizable, is the hero of this story - the airplane. The plane you see is from a ministry called Mission Aviation Fellowship (or MAF for short). This plane was stationed in a nearby province of Indonesia, but after the tsunami hit, was quickly and easily relocated to Aceh to help in the relief efforts.

     One of the biggest challenges that the relief organizations faced right away is how to get the relief aid to those who needed it. The roads were either destroyed or completely covered in debris, so ground transportation was not a viable solution for quite some time. However in areas where a small strip of land or road could be cleared, airplanes could easily get in and out to bring food, water, clothes, medical supplies, and other essentials to those who desperately needed it. And this airplane, among many others, stayed for months and flew constantly to provide that aid.

     Quick tidbit of info here - Indonesia has the highest population of Muslims anywhere in the world. The Aceh province has traditionally been a very closed Muslim area of Indonesia - meaning hostile to Christianity. But in the aftermath of the tsunami, the Muslims were not around to help out with the relief efforts. So when the Indonesians looked around and saw that it was the Christian “infidels” that were helping out in their time of need, this helped to open the door to the Gospel in this area. All this because airplanes owned by Christian missionary organizations, flown by Christian missionary pilots were there to show the love of Jesus.

     Fast forward 9 years, and after a long life of ministry, this airplane has seen better days. To the secular world, the airplane is scrap, or at best, good only for spare parts. But a ministry in Coshocton, OH (you guessed it, MMS Aviation) is able to provide service free of labor costs, to get this airplane back to prime operating condition. In June 2013, during my evaluation week, I was able to do some work on this airplane (see 1st pic below). Now after close to a year of servicing and modifications (done by others at MMS), this plane is nearly ready to begin serving in ministry again, and helping to make it possible to share the love of Jesus with those who are so desperate for His love. This is just one example of the type of project I will be able to work on at MMS Aviation, and of the kind of impact that can be made using airplanes to help spread the Gospel. Will you be able to partner with us in this ministry, and help make it possible for me to serve at MMS Aviation? Through your regular financial giving to support us in ministry, this all can be possible!

During my evaluation week last year, I am helping to install
a new wing spar carry-through on this "Tsunami Hero"

This picture was taken 2 weeks ago.  Though it doesn't look like much,
this same airplane is nearly ready to begin serving in ministry again.

God's Love

Lately, our youngest son (4 years old) has taken to affirming his love for us in this way:

<Christopher>  "Dad / Mom, do you know why I love you?"
<Us>  "Why do you love me?
<Christopher>  "Because I love you!"

Oh, I am sometimes amazed at the profound wisdom that young children often have.  This child understands that love is not based on what he gets out of a relationship, but rather that love is a choice that is made and freely given to someone else regardless of self-gain.  This reminds me of a verse in the Bible:

"This is real love--not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." I John 4:10

You see, God's love for us is just the same.  He loves us because He has freely chosen to give us His love, and not for anything we've done to deserve His love.  That same question that our youngest son asks, can also be heard from God in this entire chapter of I John 4...

<God>  "Child, do you know why I love you?"
<Us>  "Why do you love me?"
<God?  "Because I love you!"

This love is all the more clear this time of year as we head into the Easter weekend and focus on what that love cost God.  He loved us so much that He sent His son Jesus into the world, so "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." (I Cor. 15:4)  Because of that sacrificial love, we can have a relationship with God; and have the hope and peace that comes along with knowing that we'll spend forever with God!

Flight Time

Recently, I had the opportunity to go flying with a new friend of ours from MMS Aviation - Ben Fisher.  He just finished up his apprenticeship at MMS, but is still serving there whilst he finalizes details with the organization where he will next be serving.  The cool thing is that Ben is a certified flight instructor, so I'm able to learn a few things from him while he is still in the area.  Here's a few pics of our recent flight with him:

Pre-Flight Inspection

In-Flight Pics

 Keim Lumber - where I work for a couple more months

After the Flight

Corban (my oldest son) was the cameraman

Every time I get to fly in a small "bush" airplane, I fall more and more in love with flying.  Granted, this love for flying will never supersede my love for God and my family, but it ranks pretty high.  I believe that our passions / skills are one of the ways we can determine God's will for our lives, and this passion for flying combined with our passion for ministry, heart for Africa, and my skill in the French language are what has led us to the point where we know God is calling us to serve in missionary aviation in Africa.  It's a giant step of faith to follow this path God that is leading us on; but after MUCH time in prayer, searching God's Word, and consulting with fellow believers & family, we have come to the conclusion that this is indeed where God is directing us.  Please keep us in prayer as we continue to raise prayer & financial support to begin serving at MMS Aviation.  Thanks!

God's timing

Have you ever noticed how God’s timing is often quite different than our timing? 

For example - more than once in the past year, we’ve pondered “why didn’t God call us to be missionaries earlier?”  While we don’t know the full answer to that, we feel that part of it was because we weren’t ready yet.  While some of the tools that are used in ministry come from books or classes – a lot of the tools come from life experiences.  God was still taking us through those experiences to grow & mature us.

And here we are once again with God’s timing causing us to “scratch our heads.”  In our support raising, we are currently at 33% of our goal, and we cannot start full–time service / training at MMS Aviation until we are at 100%.  And yet earlier this week, I just put up a “House For Sale By Owner” sign at the end of our drive.  We are currently renting the place in which we live, and the landlord has decided that it is time for them to sell the house.  We knew that we’ll be moving closer to MMS Aviation when we start serving there, but this means that we’ll be moving down there before we’re even ready to start.

This is not to say anything negative about our landlords – they have been great folks to rent from, and the house has been an amazing place to live.  We know that this is all in the Lord’s timing, and we know that He will provide a new place for us to live once this house sells.  It’s just amazing to us that in His timing, He waited until after we’ve been married 13 years to call us into missions, and now that we’re on that track, things are happening so quickly that our heads are spinning!

But that’s good that things are happening quickly.  We are eager to begin service at MMS.  We are eager to see how He uses us, and how He grows us while we’re serving at MMS.  We are eager to see where God takes us after our 30 months at MMS.  Sometimes, following God’s will is like riding a roller coaster – you’re not sure what lies beyond that next hill or curve, but you can be sure that it’ll be exciting.

If God is leading you to help make it possible for us to serve at MMS Aviation, there’s a “Donate Online” link at the top of this page (just be sure to select "I prefer to give to Missionary Support" and then select our name).  Your involvement will enable us to live a bold, visible testimony of faith in Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the truth of God’s word while ministering locally and globally.  Your involvement will enable you to become a primary partner in missionary aviation, play a vital role in the day-to-day operation of reaching the lost through aviation, and further the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the use of airplanes.

Suffering = ?

Last week on our "Under His Wings" Facebook page (which by the way is here: http://tinyurl.com/o4w37sa), I did an update in which I briefly mentioned Romans 5:3-5 where Paul says "we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." 

Since posting that update, I've really got to thinking about the truth of that passage and how much it nails what we've been dealing with in our lives.  If you've been following our story (or read further back in this blog), you'll know that we've recently gone through a pretty rough valley with my back pain & surgery.  I remember very clearly in the months leading up to the surgery (when I was the most miserable) asking God "why me?  what did I do to deserve this."  The answer that God kept giving me was "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

Isn't it interesting how it's so easy to trust God when life is comfortable, and when things are going well.  The real test of character (and here I'm going back to the verse) is whether we are able to trust God when life is difficult and when things are not going well.  In my opinion, I didn't do anything to deserve what I went through, but God knew what I needed in order to prepare me to be able to serve as a missionary.  

For us, it is true that suffering leads to endurance.  For months I was surviving on 2 to 3 hours of sleep a night.  Anyone who has done that for even a couple nights know how exhausting that can be.  The only way that I could've endured that for months (and my family endured my misery) was that God gave us a supernatural endurance.  And having to go through that endurance training did produce character.

God knew we weren't ready yet to be missionaries.  He knew that we had some character development to undergo.  Looking back over that time, we were forced to look to Him for a source of strength when our own failed.  We learned that we can rely on Him to sustain us through the rough times.  We also saw Him provide in some amazing ways.  While I can't say that we "rejoiced in our suffering," we now see that God was more at work in our lives through that time than He ever has before.  He was molding and shaping us into the servants who would be ready to serve on the mission field.

And that endurance & character have produced a new hope in our lives.  Hope because He restored me to full health (which is an undeserved blessing).  Hope because He has called us to serve in this exciting way through missionary aviation.  Hope because we know we are walking in His will.  Hope because we know that He is all-powerful and knows all the details of our lives & future.

God, thank you for knowing so much better than we do what is best for us.  Mold us and use us for Your glory!  Amen!

Evaluation Week

So, quick recap here:

• we knew that God was calling us into full-time missionary aviation
• we knew that Jason needed training to accomplish that
• we met the ministry of MMS Aviation and love what they're doing
• we applied to their apprenticeship program

Which leads us to the evaluation week.  This was an opportunity for MMS to evaluate whether I was a good fit for their ministry, and for us to evaluate whether MMS was indeed the place where God was leading us.  We both took a week of vacation from our jobs because we'd be doing MMS things all day every day this week.

Jason spent several days in the hangars at MMS working alongside the instructors on some airplanes that are being restored for missionary service.  While I am mechanically minded and good with my hands, this was the first time I'd done work on an airplane engine or airframe (body of the airplane).  I loved the fact that even during evaluation I wasn't working on some "training" airplane, but instead was working on actual missionary airplanes that would soon be used in the mission field to transport Bible translators to remote villages, or be used as an air ambulance to fly people over the jungle to a Christian hospital, or to haul supplies and equipment to make it possible for a missionary to remain in the field.  This is what attracted us to MMS Aviation in the first place, and it was humbling for me to be a part of that - even if for only a week at this point.

Here's a few pics of my time in the hangar:

Installing new wing spar carry-through (the part that holds the wings onto the airplane)

on a Cessna 206 that is being restored for ministry in Suriname (South America)

Installing a hand brake under the instrument panel for a Piper PA-28 "Cherokee" airplane

Removing spark plugs on a Cessna 310 (used in Chinese ministry)

prior to checking the engine for proper compression

During this week, I also was evaluated on my flight training potential.  Keep in mind that at this point, I had no training in actually piloting an airplane, so they were evaluating me on my ability to follow an instructor's directions, on my ability to try & learn new things, and on my comfort level in the air.  This experience again was confirmation that this is the direction that God is leading us because I did really well, and loved every minute of our time in the air.  Here's a few pics of my flight evaluation:

Conducting pre-flight instruction of a Cessna 172 before my evaluation flight

 Taking off in the Cessna 172 from the runway beside MMS Aviation's hangar

Flying high in the sky (where I love to be) above MMS and the city of Coshocton

During the time Jason was in the hangar (and in the sky), Anita & the kids were spending time with some of the different MMS families.  This was an opportunity to meet and get to know the wives & kids of the men that Jason was working alongside for the week (and soon will be working alongside for 30 months).  Then in the evenings, Jason met up with the fam and we had supper with a different MMS family each evening.

According to Anita - "It was so enjoyable being around like-minded people.  These families have the same passion as us - serving God through the tool of airplanes.  We felt very welcome by each family, and instantly felt "at home" with the MMS family as a whole.  I was greatly encouraged in talking with some of the mothers who had served previously in a foreign country because one of my biggest concerns is how our kids would do with such a big life change.  While it's still too soon to say for sure where God will place us, our dream is to serve in the country of Cameroon, Africa.  We'd be living in a third-world culture, and we'd have to learn a foreign language.  Is it wise to ask this of our kids?  The unanimous feeling was that it was indeed wise; and that it was both beneficial and a privilege for our kids to experience another culture, to see how other people view things differently, to see how blessed we as Americans are, to see how the God we serve is the same God everywhere, and to see what it means to surrender to God's will.  For me, this was confirmation that this path was not only the right one for me & Jason, but also for our kids as well."

Then on Thursday of evaluation week, we were interviewed by the MMS administration.  Oddly enough, we weren't nervous at all before, or during, this interview; because by this point we were convinced that this was where God wanted us.  There is such peace and security that comes along with being fully in God's will.  After a pretty thorough interview, we were informed that we were accepted into their apprenticeship program if we were interested (and we were!) 

And that right there is one of the most defining moments of our journey into missions.  It was a year and a week from my back surgery to the point that we were accepted to MMS Aviation.  The journey that was first started during my post-op recovery was finally confirmed.  We were no longer searching God's will for our life, we are now living it!  While the journey has still only begun, we are taking each step as God shows us the path.

Where we are right now is in the process of raising financial support to begin serving at MMS Aviation.  If you are interested in partnering with us and "launching" us into ministry, here's a link to where you can give - https://secure-q.net/Donations/MMSA/929  We know God has exciting things in store for us, and the sooner we reach 100% of our funding goal, the sooner we can start serving at MMS Aviation.  Would you prayerfully consider joining us?

Discovering the path - part 2

It's hard to believe that 2013 is over.  At the same time, a lot has happened since this time last year.  I remember then, feeling very strongly called into missionary aviation, but still unsure what path to take get there. 

Let me continue the story... At the same MATA event that we mentioned in our last post, we also met with Doug Deming - a missionary pilot who served with JAARS in Peru for many years.  I explained to him about my interest in missionary aviation, and also about my 10 years of French study in school.  He was particularly excited about the language experience, and mentioned about how JAARS has a base in Cameroon, Africa (where French is the national language).  That conversation planted a seed in my heart that has since grown into a strong desire to serve in Cameroon. 

Doug asked about my experience as a mechanic or pilot, and when I explained that I had none, he took me over to another display - for MMS Aviation (Missionary Maintenance Service).  Check out this website to see what MMS is all about: http://www.mmsaviation.org/.  We had the opportunity to speak with Dwight Jarboe about their ministry.  The one thing that really caught our interest with this organization is their apprenticeship opportunity.  The fact that I could learn how to be a missionary airplane mechanic while at the same time making a difference in the global mission effort really appealed to us.  I wouldn't have to go back to college for another 4 years just to learn how to be a missionary pilot / mechanic.  At MMS, I could start out Day 1 working on missionary airplanes and learning everything I need to know "on the job."

After looking into several other options for how to get the training, we kept coming back to MMS.  After spending a lot of time praying about this, and seeking counsel from friends & family, we finally felt at peace that this was the path that God was directing us to take.  So in February 2013, we filled out the application to their program, and in May our application was approved and a week of evaluation was scheduled for June.  This week was an opportunity for MMS to evaluate whether I was a good fit for their program, and for me to evaluate whether we felt that MMS was indeed the place for us to serve.

In our next post, we'll share about that evaluation week (hint, it was successful).